


Cooking with Belle (a Tale of Terror)

by Ellynne



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Bad Cooking, F/M, Humor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:14:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28278963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellynne/pseuds/Ellynne
Summary: Belle is trying to master using a kitchen in the Land Without Magic. Rumple is hoping they both survive it.
Relationships: Belle/Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold
Comments: 18
Kudos: 23





	1. Prologue: Oreos

The curse, at long last, was ended. Once Rumplestiltskin found a way past the town line, he would be able, at long last, to find his son. In the meantime, there were still things to do, plans to be made and threads to be pulled.

And there was Belle. Beyond the wonder, the miracle, of her being alive and here— _with him_ (a decision of hers he still didn’t understand and never would but that he would treasure as long as it lasted)—there were a few tiny, microscopic, almost insignificant . . . he would not call them _problems_ , not exactly. Complications. Yes, that was it. There were _complications_ with having Belle here in his home.

He’d dealt with some of them. Unlike everyone else in Storybrooke, Belle hadn’t come into this world with an understanding of how the Land Without Magic worked. Rumple had been trying to explain it to her. So far, she had learned how not to be electrocuted by putting a knife in the toaster, or by putting anything but a plug into an outlet, or by handling electronics while standing in a puddle or lying in the bathtub. He’d quietly changed the stove into an electric one after a hair-raising lesson in the dangers of gas (although Belle now knew what a gas leak smelled like and what to do if she smelled one). They’d also discussed how the washing machine worked and why some things (like his suits) needed to go to the dry cleaners. But, he suspected there was still more to come.

So, it was with a sense of dread that Rumplestiltskin took in the scene in the kitchen. There was a bag of Oreo cookies on the counter. To one side, there was a bowl of little circles of Oreo frosting. A bowl of chocolate cookie circles was on the other. Belle presided over them, an intense look of concentration on her face as she twisted another cookie apart, picked up a table knife and deftly sliced out the frosting. Then, with a flick of the wrist, she tossed the frosting off the knife and into the bowl with the other white circles.

Rumplestiltskin was quick-witted and intelligent. He also had over three centuries of experience in all sorts of strange and bizarre events. None of that helped him figure out what Belle was up to.

“Sweetheart,” he said carefully, trying to sound casual and nonchalant. “What are you doing?”

Belle looked up at him and smiled. “Hello, Rumple. I’m making a pie.”

Rumplestiltskin looked at the frosting, then at the chocolate cookies, and tried to imagine a scenario—any scenario—where Oreo cookies and frosting added up to ‘pie.’ He failed.

“Do you mean cake?” he asked. He didn’t want Belle to think he was criticizing, but. . . . “There are easier ways to get frosting,” he said.

Belle looked at the frosting, a glint in her eye. “What a good idea,” she said. “I didn’t want to waste it. But, this is what I’m working on now,” she told him holding up a picture from a magazine. _Make Ice Cream Pie at Home!_ It declared cheerfully above a picture of an ice cream pie, complete with a chocolate cookie crust.

Rumplestiltskin had not appreciated till this moment that _Good Housekeeping_ should be kept locked up with the other soul-destroying books on the dark arts. “I see,” he said, thinking quickly. “Er, sweetheart, do you have a recipe for the cookie crust?”

“Not exactly,” Belle said. “But, I looked through your cookbooks and found one for a graham cracker crust. I’m just substituting cookies. Or I will once I scrape off all the frosting. I’ll save those for a cake.”

Rumplestiltskin swallowed, trying to force back the knot of dread in his stomach. “Oreo frosting isn’t quite the same as cake frosting,” he told her diplomatically. In truth, he wasn’t wholly convinced it was food. The unholy creation of mad alchemist who had spent too much time breathing in lead fumes seemed much more likely. “You see how it holds its shape? I don’t think you could spread it on a cake.”

“Oh,” Belle considered the little circles of frosting, possibly hatching a new plan. Rumplestiltskin wondered how to head it off, but Bell’s attention was back on the cookies. “Rumple, how do people usually make a cookie crust in this world?”

Rumplestiltskin’s experience of ice cream pie was a bit limited, but he tried to remember what knew about this world. “I think they buy them. In a grocery store.”

“ _Buy_ them?” Belle was horrified. She looked around the kitchen, at the stove, and sink, and ovens. “I thought you said everyone has kitchens like this here?”

Ah, yes. In the Enchanted Forest, most food was made from scratch and cooked at home. For most people, that meant over an open fire, possibly with a pot hanging over it for soup and such. The local baker might be the only one in a village with an oven. The castle Belle had grown up was practically a town in its own right and had several, but she’d known not to take them for granted. Now, she was no doubt imagining the poor, huddled masses of Storybrooke, begging for a few pastries and bagels.

“It’s easier,” Rumplestiltskin explained hastily. “Like buying ready-made cookies. They’re not that expensive, and it saves time.” 

Belle didn’t look entirely convinced. When Rumplestiltskin returned to the house that evening, she presented him with an ice cream pie in a homemade cookie crust. He pretended not to notice the dark crumbs spread all over the kitchen or the half-emptied container of ice cream melting in a corner. He wondered if she’d put the cookies in a plastic bag before taking the rolling pin to them. Assuming she’d used a rolling pin. Rumplestiltskin noticed his hammer was sitting on the counter where it hadn’t been this morning.

There was also cake. It was burnt and badly deflated. Belle had piled the Oreo centers into the deep pit in an effort to hide it, but the rest of the frosting was more or less normal.

Rumplestiltskin assured Belle that he loved every bite of it. It was the truth, too.

It was also the wrong thing to say, considering what was coming. But, he wouldn’t know that till it was much too late.


	2. Like Burning Glass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belle tries to create a better recipe. It doesn't go well.

_O, sir, we are defeated! all the works_

_Are flown_ _in fumo_ _, every glass is burst;_

_Furnace and all rent down, as if a bolt_

_Of thunder had been driven through the house._

Ben Jonson, _The Alchemist_

There were moments, Rumplestiltskin had found, when disasters, horrors, nightmares, call them what you will, reached a point beyond fear, when a person passed through terror and arrived in a place of strange calm. True, he was usually the one causing the terror when it happened to other people, but he recognized the symptoms.

A corner of his mind was unemotionally reasoning that, if only his neighbors had been close enough to hear what went on his house, this moment might be different. Surely, _someone_ would have called him? Although, he could imagine how the conversation would go from long experience.

_“So sorry to bother you, Mr. Gold, but there were blood-curdling screams of a sort to freeze the very marrow in your bones. Not that that means anything is wrong. Or that I want to know about it. In fact, I’ll be forgetting it ever happened, if anyone asks. Just thought I should let you know first. In case you didn’t. I’ll be hanging up now.”_

Because, there must have been screams, mustn’t there?

Really, what had Regina been thinking, giving him a home where no one could hear screams no matter how loud they were? Had she never thought about the potential downsides of that and how they might affect her? Did she even understand the words “enlightened self-interest”?

Well, as they said in the old world, no use crying over spilled blood. What mattered now was his kitchen. And the thick, dark red liquid splattered on the floor

. . . . and the counter. . .

. . . and the table. . .

. . . the fridge. . .

. . . the walls. . .

. . . the windows. . .

. . . the curtains. . .

. . . the lights. . .

. . . the ceiling. . .

. . . everywhere, really. 

Here and there were smaller, fleshier lumps, none of them more than half an inch across. He hadn’t examined those too closely yet. Thick, half-dried streaks of dark brown were mixed in, some slowly dripping down to the floor. Razor-edged shards of broken glass were embedded in all of it.

Belle stood in the center, grumbling as she mopped up.

Rumplestiltskin looked carefully, but she appeared uninjured. None of the red liquid, fleshy lumps, or half-dried streaks seemed to have come from her. 

“Sweetheart,” he said cautiously. “How are you doing?" _And are there any bodies I need to help you dispose of?_

Belle glared, not so much at him as at the universe in general, (not that he was taking chances). “It’s not my fault,” she said.

“I’m sure it wasn’t,” he hastily agreed.

“It could have happened to anyone.”

“Naturally.”

“There’s no _flame_ on the stove. It makes it confusing.”

“I’m sure it does. Ah . . . what was confusing?”

“I tried to make another ice cream cake.”

“Yes?” Had the owner of _Any Given Sundae_ been behind this? And met a no doubt well-deserved doom?

“I decided to just mix chocolate cookie batter, spread it out in a pan, and bake it instead of crushing up the Oreos.”

“A reasonable plan.”

“Then, I spread the ice cream over it.” She glared at the red splatter. “Cherry Surprise.”

“Oh.” So, that’s what the red lumps were. Which meant Ingrid was no doubt fine. Pity. Well, perhaps later.

“I let it melt a little. Just to soften it up. It was easier to spread that way.”

“Of course.”

“And I made hot fudge.” Belle waved a hand at what, under the Cherry Surprise, was a fudge encrusted pot in the kitchen sink. Oddly, despite the pot, the sink seemed to be the only part of the kitchen to escape unscathed. “I spread the fudge over the ice cream.”

“Perfectly sound thinking.”

“I meant to let it cool for a bit before adding the whipped cream. I was going to read for a bit. I finished all the Shakespeare plays and thought I would move on to Ben Jonson.”

“A good choice.” Much better than _Doctor Faustus_ , in the Dark One’s opinion. 

“I had just started reading when I heard the explosion.” Belle looked at the stove accusingly. “I hadn’t turned the burner off. I used the warm setting because I didn’t want to overcook the fudge. The burner didn’t look the slightest bit red.”

“A serious design problem.” He did not mention the red light on the stove that lit up while a burner was on. They were very small red lights, after all, easy to overlook.

“I left the ice cream cake—I was using a glass pan—by the burner.” Belle bit her lip, looking embarrassed. “Maybe on top of the burner. I’m not sure.”

“I see.” Heat from below, icy cold from above. 

“Glass doesn’t deal well with temperature extremes, does it?”

“An obvious flaw.” Though he could only be glad Belle hadn’t been reading in _this_ room when it happened.

“This wouldn’t have happened if I used a _metal_ pan.”

It wasn’t clear if the pan or Rumplestiltskin were at fault for not having a metal pan suitable for ice cream cakes, but he agreed hastily. “No, it wouldn’t.” Although, that didn’t save him from the mental image of Belle lost in a book until fudge, cookie crust, and Cherry Surprise, safe in an unexploding pan, caught fire instead. Time to test the fire alarms.

“No harm done,” he said, waving a hand. Ice cream, fudge, cookie remains, and glass all vanished. The spots where the shards had impaled themselves were once again whole and unblemished.

“I could have cleaned that up, Rumple.”

“No doubt. But, it was my fault for not warning you about the stove. Why don’t you take a break while I make dinner?” There was a militant look in Belle’s eye that showed she was going to argue. “You can finish your book,” he added. “I’d love to discuss Jonson with you.”

He wasn’t sure he had ever really read Jonson. But, Gold had cursed memories of having to study him in a school in Scotland. He could no doubt get through at least one meal talking about his works.

In fact, he did better than that. He and Belle got into a lively discussion of _The Alchemist_ compared to Shakespeare’s comedies and how they influenced later writers, like Gilbert and Sullivan. It lasted through the main meal, dessert (a hastily scrambled together pie that finished baking just as they were giving their opinions on the Abbess was the long lost mother in _Comedy of Errors_ and how Jonson’s plot twists compared to it), and were still going strong as they finished washing up.

Rumple was putting the dishes away while explaining what he knew about the evolution of drama in this world, compared to their own, while Belle leaned back against the stove. He suggested they continue the conversation in the living room. Belle straightened and began to walk out of the kitchen. 

That’s when Rumple saw the back of her blouse had caught on fire. Somehow, Belle had managed to flip the burner on. Again.

Retrospectively, Rumple could have put out the fire with magic rather than conjure a bucket of water and throw it at her. Funny how the mind worked during a crisis.

As Belle stalked away to change, Rumplestiltskin quietly resolved to look up every fire-proofing spell he knew and put them on the burners. He should probably put them on Belle’s clothes, too, while he was at it. 


End file.
